1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to silicon nitride, and more particularly relates to a high density sintered silicon nitride body having improved mechanical strength and thermal shock resistance and a method of producing the same.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Recently, silicon nitride (Si.sub.3 N.sub.4) is particularly remarked as high-temperature structural materials such as gas turbine parts and the like because it has excellent mechanical strength, thermal resistance and thermal shock resistance. Because of poor sinterability, silicon nitride is generally difficult to obtain a sintered body having high density and high mechanical strength. As a method of producing the sintered silicon nitride body, therefore, there have been reported a reaction-sintering method wherein silicon is sintered on nitriding, and a hot-pressing method wherein silicon nitride powder is hot pressed after added with sintering aids such as magnesium oxide (MgO) and the like, for instance, by G. G. Deeley et al, "Dense Silicon Nitride," Powder Metallurgy, 1961, No. 8, pp. 145-151. In the reaction-sintering method, however, high density sintered body cannot be obtained because shrinkage on sintering is hardly caused. Further, in the hot-pressing method, sintered bodies having high density and mechanical strength are produced, but the method is not available for fabricating dense silicon nitride bodies with complex shapes due to restrictions associated with this method and also the production cost becomes expensive.
Furthermore, a method of producing sintered silicon nitride body, wherein silicon nitride powders are added with magnesium oxide as sintering aids and subjected to a usual sintering treatment without press, has been reported, for instance, by G. R. Terwilliger, "Properties of Sintered Si.sub.3 N.sub.4," Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 1974, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 48-49. In this method, however, the density is insufficient and the mechanical strength, especially at high temperatures, is small and hence thermal shock resistance is small. Therefore, the sintered body obtained by this method is not suitable for high-temperature structural materials.